One for the War...

I was at home depot today,
I saw a quart size can of

RustOleoum Aluminum Latex primer
there were also a few diffrent bare metal primers,


Anyone out there use these so far?>
I have been using

a rustoleum self etching rattle can, not the toughest stuff....but I don't think I will be flying in to clouds filled with MEK or other solvents so that test I felt was a little void.

Thoughts?

Chromate primers are the ones to use with aircraft-grade aluminum alloy, they react chemically with the aluminum to create a thin layer of aluminum chromate on the surface. You can't get that with a latex hardware store primer. If you're going to use that stuff, you'd be better off not using anything at all.

There are quite a few good primers out there, but the most commonly used ones are AKZO primer (comes in gallon quantities, to spray in an air sprayer) or NAPA 7220 rattle can primer, available at any NAPA auto parts store. Stick with those and you'll be fine.

When you're looking at primers for aircraft, you need to look for Zinc Chromate or Strontium Chromate as an ingredient. If it doesn't have one of those two, then it's not aircraft grade primer.

zinc chromate

Boating supply stores still carry zinc chromate. The big guys are using epoxy.